Your mind is like a little tin can you rattle around in, constantly.
Stay with me …
A little tin can that is filled with spikes and soft squishy padding in between (you get me metaphor? i.e. bad thoughts and good thoughts).
You may have more or less spikes than the next person, but the thing is that you’re never quite sure where you're going to land one moment to the next.
It’s like some kid is kicking your tin can down the street - you roll and bump and crash around unpredictably, sometimes landing on squishiness, sometimes landing on a spike, but always moving, always banging around on the inside.
Occasionally you stick your head out and the vision of which invokes a response of:
“Whoa! This is a pleasant land indeed!” because beyond is wide, and vast, and peaceful. There is no attempting to grab something good or trying to avoid pain, just a long relaxing sigh of ease …
… only for you to pull your head back in, all just through habit.
bom, bash, ahhhh, crunch, ouch.
There is one way out - and that is through sedation. Alcohol and drugs, food, TV, porn, whatever people can find to switch off.
But then you wake up, and you’re back in your little tin can again.
In order to free yourself from the tin can of your mind, you have to learn to do something different from thinking.
The bottom line of mastering your mind is not force or strain, it lies in being more aware than just this little world of your thoughts.
Exercise your choice for something else beyond and this will become a habit.
See the bigger picture, just see your mind clearly for what it is.
It really doesn’t matter what your mind says, you are not it. There is nothing wrong with it - it just is sometimes spiky, sometimes soft.
Choose to experience more than just that. Choose to have consistent peace in your head - a little bit of calm in a busy life. Choose to have consistent headspace, consistently free from the ouches of the little spikes.
Stick your head out, learn to experience more than just your mind. It’s a simple thing - just be aware of everything else.
And through practice is becomes normal.
Happy, calm and focussed becomes the new normal.
Want that kind of normal?
15-17 April - Ascension meditation course with moi, Richmond North Yorkshire.
We begin at 7pm on the Friday, you can go home, or if you want to stay we have beds in our retreat centre so you can stay.
I’ll give you everything you need so you can make calm and cent redness the new normal
- let me know if you would like a place, hit reply.
Till then, keep the peace!
- Arjuna